I sighed and let my head fall against the back of the seat. It wasn’t the first time I had been in the back of a cop car, but I had a sinking feeling it was going to be the most serious reason I’d ever had had for being there.

“He hit her. Normally, he just treats her like shit, and makes her feel bad and worthless, but this time he put his hands on her. I just lost it.”

The cop watched me closely. “He do that to your face?” I had forgotten about my cheek and prodded at the inside with my tongue. It still stung but it wasn’t dripping blood anymore, so I didn’t think it was going to need stitches or anything.

“Yeah. Sucker punched me when I first walked in the door.”

My hands were starting to throb, with my knuckles undeniably split open and torn. The reality of what I had done was starting to settle heavily on my shoulders.

The cop nodded and tapped the roof of the car. “They’re both saying you started it. The old man wants to press assault charges.”

I groaned. I bet he would be willing to drop them the second I agreed to hook him up with Artifice and send him on tour.

“We have to take you down to the station and book you. You have anyone you can call to get you bailed out?”

I nodded and had him call Rowdy. I gave him the CliffsNotes version of events and had no doubt he would bring the cavalry with him, but I had been in enough situations with the law during my misspent youth to know that no matter how quickly he moved, I was still looking at a solid day spent in lockup.

I appreciated that the cop didn’t grill me or try to give me a bunch of unwanted advice on the trip to the station. I also appreciated that he didn’t ask me over and over if I wanted to know how my dad was doing. I didn’t want to know, and I didn’t want to know what my mom had to say about it. This was the last straw. I was going to go on the European tour. I was going to look at signing with a label, if that’s what the guys wanted. I was going to do it all, everything I held back on because of her. What I wasn’t going to do was try to stand sentinel between my mom and that bastard anymore.

They booked me, ran my prints, took my rings and my belt, my wallet and my phone, and put me in a cell with a dude who was clearly in for some kind of drug thing. He was twitchy and kept asking me if I had a smoke, even though there was obviously no smoking when you were locked up. I sat on the hard bench and stared at the ceiling for what felt like hours. As the time passed, more people were ushered in and out of the cell, and I just kept still. I was just trying to blend into the brick walls and make this day go away.

I didn’t even want to know how I was supposed to explain any of this to Ayden. We weren’t exactly at the “bail your boyfriend out of jail” stage of our relationship. Hell, I didn’t even know if we were at the relationship part of the relationship. Something told me this little road bump was going to go over like heavy metal at a funeral. She already couldn’t see anything beyond a good time in bed with me, and the last thing I needed to do was prove her right.

It was well after dark when they were finally able to post my bail. I had to show up in court the following week for sentencing, and the same cop who had arrested me walked me to where Rowdy was waiting with a handful of paperwork. He had a serious look on his face and I could tell he wasn’t happy. The cop handed me a bag that had all my crap in it and shook my hand.

“For what it’s worth, I would have much rather put the cuffs on the old guy. I see it every day. I understand you were just trying to do right by your mom. Too many kids find themselves in that situation, a lot of them are much younger than you.”

I just sighed and thanked him for his time.

Rowdy clapped me on the back of the neck and practically dragged me out of the station. I was surprised to see that he was alone, but as we walked to his black SUV he told me, “The cop mentioned you left the Challenger in the Heights with the keys still in it. Nash convinced Rule to go with him to pick it up and drop it off at the house. Didn’t know what the old bastard might do to it.”

That hadn’t even occurred to me, so I muttered a thank-you and looked at him out of the corner of my eye. “Thanks for coming to get me, dude.”

He brushed it off. “Whatever.”

“Seriously. I’ll pay you back.”

“Okay, I’m about to punch you on the other side of your face. Knock it off and just tell me what happened.”

I jammed my fists into my eye sockets and tried to block it out but all I could see was my mom crying and her black eye. It made me want to beat on the old man all over again.

“It was a total shit show that involved my dad throwing me on the ground, my mom with a black eye, and some pretty serious assault charges leveled at me.” I flexed my hands and winced as the scrapes across my raw knuckles pulled and tugged. “I would have killed him. Seriously, Rowdy. I was so goddamn close.”

He was quiet for a long minute and I thought maybe I had crossed a line in our friendship, but when he spoke, his voice was steady and there was no censure in it.

“He would have deserved it. No man should ever hit a woman.”

I groaned and wanted to pull my hair out. “Now all I can think about is how long it was going on and why she never said anything. She got into the fucking ambulance with him and went to the hospital. She was bleeding and had a black eye and she went with that bastard to the hospital where she works. She didn’t say a word when they put cuffs on me and shoved me in the back of the cruiser, not even ‘thank you.’ I’m over it, dude. Just over it.”

“You need to get a lawyer.”

“Yeah, I guess I probably should.”

“Talk to your mom. Get her to tell them that he hit her first.”

I shook my head. “That won’t happen. I mean, I guess I should have seen this coming. It’s been getting worse and worse. I refused to set him up with Dario and the boys in Artifice. He wanted to go on tour with them as a roadie. Can you believe that shit? I told him no and he beat the crap out of her and then tried to whip my ass. He’s insane.”

“What are you going to do?”

That was the question. What was I going to do? Since I didn’t have an answer, I just kept my mouth shut. I was glad to see the Challenger parked in the driveway. I was also glad to see that Cora’s Mini was gone and so was Ayden’s Jeep. I wasn’t sure what I wanted to say to either of them, and now that I had the time to wash the stench of jail off and try to put my head back on right, I was gladly going to use it. I turned to Rowdy and gave him a lopsided grin that had no humor in it.

“Let the guys know I’m cool. Especially Nash. This isn’t the first rodeo with my old man. I doubt it’ll be the last.”

“We got your back, Jet. Don’t sweat it.”

I nodded my thanks and jumped out of the SUV. It was closing in on midnight and I felt wrung out and dirty. All I wanted to do was strip down both physically and mentally. I felt like I should have seen this coming from a mile away, and it bothered me that I was still disappointed that it was happening to me. Before I could change my mind, before I could let guilt and anything else get in the way, I sent Dario a text to tell him that the boys and I were in for the tour. I would deal with what that meant for where I stood with Ayden later. Right now, I needed something tangible to focus on and put my energy into, and getting together an amazing set to take overseas was just the ticket. I turned the phone off before I could see what he sent me back, and wandered into the bathroom.

I dropped everything in a messy, bloodstained pile on the floor and turned the water on as hot as it would go. When the steam filled the room, I climbed in and let the scalding burn slide over my head and down over my shoulders. I wanted to wash the entire day away, but that was far-fetched because I still had a dad in the hospital and a looming court date, and no matter how hot the water was, neither of those things was simply going to wash away. I flexed my hands under the water and watched dispassionately as the dried blood swirled with the water down the drain. The slice on my face started to sting and I was going to scrub it, when the glass door to the shower opened and I felt soft hands slide around my waist and rest on my stomach. A feather-light kiss landed on the back of my neck and I felt her lay her cheek on the center of my spine.